


breathing under the same sky

by eggsoodeux (restlessoceans)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Youtuber AU, kyungsoo is a youtuber and chanyeol is his loyal subscriber
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26928784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessoceans/pseuds/eggsoodeux
Summary: Dyo, the Youtuber, only wears black or grey cotton shirts in his videos and only shoots from his neck down to where the kitchen island hides his legs from the camera. Chanyeol laments the fact that he’s never seen the guy’s face.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56





	breathing under the same sky

**Author's Note:**

> pulling stuff from the drafts again. i'm sorry for not being able to post last month, i've been in a bit of a block. still not super sold on this, but it's what i have. this au was borne out of my desire for kyungsoo to maybe have some sort of social media presence, although it seems like a moot point
> 
> title is from post it by loco. i hope you enjoy this little attempt at meet-cute <3

When the noise of the city borders on unbearable, Park Chanyeol does what any other broke millennial does: he plugs in his headphones and opens YouTube.

His browsing history on the streaming site shifts with his mood; for a long while it had been dog videos, then pimple popping, then chiropractic treatments, a big leap toward that one channel where a Japanese man makes knives out of paper towels and whatever else is closest to him. From there it moved to knife sharpening and repair, which now brings him to this — an elusive cooking channel of a guy in his 20s, sharing recipes for traditional Korean dishes and tips for keeping cooking knives in mint condition, all while his two pet dogs watch from across his kitchen island. He even named them by color. Chanyeol is a little smitten.

Dyo, the Youtuber, only wears dark or grey cotton shirts in his videos and only shoots from his neck down to where the kitchen island hides his legs from the camera. Chanyeol laments the fact that he’s never seen this guy’s face.

“Just the strike zone,” Jongin helpfully supplies. He’s in Chanyeol and Baekhyun’s shared apartment to help out with another one of his sample tracks. Jongin is 21 and still working on his degree in dance, but he’s got a nice set of pipes, smooth and a little nasal, that helps when the tracks Chanyeol make are about yearning. It definitely helps Jongin that his voice is perfect for aegyo, as he’s convinced both his hyungs to buy him some chicken.

“I don’t get it,” Baekhyun says around a bite of drumstick meat. Jongin opens his mouth, probably about to explain the intricacies of a batter and his strike zone. He’s even gotten a piece of paper, drawing a stickman with what looks like a huge dick—wait, a bat. “He doesn’t even take his shirt off, what the point of watching this? Ha, nice stickman penis, Nini.” “It’s _not_ —”

“I care about _substance_ , that’s why,” Chanyeol snipes, ignoring Baekhyun’s murmured _right,_ _substance. Like exactly what this dude’s ass is made of whenever he turns around and reaches for the high shelves._ Chanyeol just turns back to his laptop screen, scrambling to close the tab when he sees the point the video is paused at, because Baekhyun might think this proves his point.

* * *

What Chanyeol loves about Dyo’s channel, other than the allure of a man who doesn’t know his name (therefore none of his faults), is the obvious time and effort that goes through uploading them. The color grading is nice and consistent, the video is always in crisp and high quality. It never feels like Dyo uploads anything in a rush, or just for posting’s sake; he always has a little anecdote to share about each and every one of them. It’s obvious that this channel is precious to him.

Chanyeol had commented once, on his personal account, about how it was cool that Dyo’s videos don’t just feel like cooking videos, more like short films. Dyo replied with a blue heart and _thank you, i actually wanted a career in film once_. It was probably the highlight of Chanyeol’s month.

It’s Friday, which means there’s a new upload in Dyo’s channel by 7 PM, and Chanyeol has a tab open by 6:55, always keeps 30 minutes free on his music production schedule for this. Right on the dot, a new notification pops up.

The setup today is different. For one, the kitchen looks bigger, there’s more sunlight piercing the space. The counter is now a nice consistent gray marble, instead of the uneven bathroom tile counter Dyo’s had in his previous videos. A small cardboard box is at the very edge of the screen, where his signature penguin mittens are peeking through. The camera switches to the shot of the dogs, where they’re sitting and curiously sniffing at the table, and Chanyeol can make out cardboard boxes, stacked in two levels. Chanyeol pauses the video, tries to make sense of the black pixels that must be Dyo’s handwriting, but even at the highest resolution, it stays too blurry to read. It must be a new apartment.

“Yah, Chanyeol, stop making out with your screen where I can see.”

“Not everyone wastes their bandwidth on porn,” Chanyeol replies, standing up so he can shut the door.

“Not my fault those cooking videos are the closest thing to porn that you watch,” Baekhyun singsongs. “Dinner’s ready, by the way!” His roommate like to pretend he’s some 1950s American housewife when all he does is buy galbi from the restaurant down the street. Chanyeol is in charge of rice, and it would be another ten minutes before it’s cooked.

> `00:18 - I’m making agedashi tofu today. I know it’s not the usual Korean stuff, but I’ve been craving Japanese food for a while.`

Dyo scratches behind Huchu's ears in parting. The next shot is of the neighborhood streets, and the camera wobbles like it’s mounted on a scooter or a bike, and the shot is low enough that the street signs aren’t in view. The blue acrylic sign of the neighborhood grocer comes into view. It seems a little familiar, but Chanyeol supposes all small businesses look alike.

Dyo doesn’t mute his audio when he shoots; he’s just a quiet worker and aside from Huchu and Meokmul’s quiet sneezing and the sounds of his cooking, his videos don’t have other sounds. Chanyeol isn’t expecting to hear Dyo’s voice, but the faint _excuse me_ is there nonetheless when he squeezes past a couple in the cramped aisle. It’s low and gentle.

The feeling of deja-vu lingers as Dyo peruses the store, the layout so similar to the grocer Chanyeol frequents two blocks over, that Chanyeol almost feels like he’s there himself. It’s not until Dyo is at the register, handing over money for packaged tofu and spring onions, that he recognizes the stickers on the counter, the knobby hands of Grandpa Song, unmistakable because of the burn scar on the skin between his right pointer and thumb. He knows that hand because he’s lived in the area since he could walk, hasn’t left it despite moving out of his parents place 3 years ago. Grandpa Song used to babysit him while his mom was working two jobs and would work overtime.

He slams his laptop shut, runs out to the room to find Baekhyun scooping out the rice into two bowls, the steam blowing into his face.

“He’s here,” Chanyeol announces, breathless. Baekhyun scrunches his nose in confusion.

“Gong Yoo? You know goblins aren’t really real, and if they were, they definitely won’t look like critically acclaimed veteran actor Gong Yoo, right?” Chanyeol resists the urge to throw his chopsticks at him. Who hasn’t had a Gong Yoo phase?

“I mean Dyo, the Youtuber I like.” Baekhyun stares at him with a blank expression until Chanyeol remembers to add, “—to _watch_. He’s here, Baekhyunnie.”

“If you ordered some headless cardboard cutout of this man that you definitely would have to have made because he’s not that famous, I will disown you. I’ll cut all of our ties.”

“That was a Deadpool cutout and he got bent in the move, okay! You know that’s a sensitive topic for me!” Chanyeol pauses to take a few bites of his food, chewing aggressively. “ _Dyo_ moved to our neighborhood. In his last video, he was in Grandpa Song’s place. That’s two blocks from here. Do you know what that means?!”

Baekhyun shrugs. “That you’ll be doing groceries for the first time since I moved in?” This time Chanyeol really does throw his chopsticks. Good thing he’d finished his meal.

* * *

Chanyeol knows that it’s a moot point to think he’d run into Dyo organically. Despite living outside the business district, there are still a lot of people living in Ilsan-dong. Not to mention the other logistical factors, like actually knowing what the man looks like. Dyo could pass him by the street and Chanyeol wouldn’t know a thing. He already knows the man is probably perfect, and despite dreamcasting Kim Minjae’s face onto Dyo, he’s probably far off.

Chanyeol does volunteer to do groceries now, in a useless sort of way where all he buys are ingredients for kimchi jjigae and tteokbokki, and ramyeon. Lots of it. Baekhyun complains about him not getting this new ice cream flavor he wanted, but it wasn’t sold at the Grandpa Song’s, so he will have to live until the next grocery run without his boba flavored ice cream sandwich. There aren’t cute cooking Youtubers in Grandpa Song’s place either.

Chanyeol whines about it, of course, which is met by Baekhyun saying, “And if you did bump into a cooking Youtuber and it is, in fact, the Dyo-ssi you speak of, what then? You tell him, hi, I recognize you from my abstract wet dreams-slash-maybe the cooking channel you run where you never show your face?”

The beauty of a meet-cute is obviously lost on him. Baekhyun likes meeting people through “modern means”, which is basically just Grindr, or whatever the latest dating app is now for young twunks. Chanyeol points this out to him, and Baekhyun calls him a self-hating twunk in turn, all while making a show of swiping right at a photo of some art history/theater major whose first photo is of two guys popping open the buttons of his dress shirt on either side of him. Fair.

A week passes without a new video from Dyo. All seems lost, until Sunday afternoon. A banner notification on his phone links him to the new video, titled _Bringing My Dogs to a Dog Café_. It’s far from his usual content, the fluorescent overhead light of his shoe locker at home shining down on the dogs, who are scratching at Dyo’s black jeans.

> `00:20 - Sorry for not being able to post another cooking video. I haven’t had time to film since I’m adjusting to my new place and my new job.`
> 
> `00:28 - Can you believe I actually haven’t gotten to buy groceries yet? My fridge is so empty. Cooking channel Youtubers can eat ramyeon with egg for meals too~`

Dyo fastens the leashes to his dogs’ collars and walks them out. A light goes off in Chanyeol’s mind. He calls his mom.

“Mom, can I borrow Toben for a while?”

* * *

Toben, a black toy poodle, was Chanyeol’s dog at the beginning. They took to each other swimmingly when Toben was a puppy, but Chanyeol must’ve slacked somewhere in the _Making Your Dog Feel Like You’re the Boss_ module, because now Toben doesn’t listen to him. He listens better to Baekhyun, which is a sign of bad taste. But! Chanyeol is determined to bring his dog to the café and cutely bump into Dyo.

“I’m going to bring Toben to a dog café and cutely bump into Dyo,” he announces on Thursday.

Baekhyun is rubbing Toben’s belly, a treat hanging off his other hand. “At least the bumping part wouldn’t be a hardship. You do that all the time anyway. I think the air up at six feet is just way too thin.”

“I think the pressure up at your area 5000 feet below sea level is compacting your brain,” Chanyeol says around another packet of spicy Cheetos. In front of him are two dog shirts that his mom had left for Toben, which Baekhyun and Toben took offense to.

“Literally don’t do it,” Baekhyun warns. “Chanyeol, it’s not even Christmas.” Just for that, Chanyeol spends twenty minutes trying to wrangle Toben into the green Santa’s elf sweater before taking a shower and dressing up himself.

When he comes out, dressed in a blue sweater with a bold red stripe across it that he didn’t really spend too much time overthinking, no matter what Baekhyun says, Toben is sweaterless and strapped on a leash. Baekhyun shoves the handle in Chanyeol’s hand and rushes him out the door, saying “go, go meet the love of your life, you’re going to be late and I have to burn those sweaters.”

Chanyeol finds himself on the street, Toben’s leash on one hand and his phone on the other. He has no idea where to start but decides opening Kakao Maps is as good a start as any. There’s at least five along Ilsan, more than 20 within Goyang city, so he has his work cut out for him. Dyo never mentioned the name of the cafe, purposefully kept the shot low or cut off instances where the name of the place is seen. He’s not really known for doing product placements in his video, the one time he’d mentioned a specific brand — doenjang paste, Chanyeol remembers — he’d whined about running out of stock back in his old grocery, because his mom had shared his recipe among the aunties around their place. 

Chanyeol spends the whole day pretending to be an interested customer looking for a new dog cafe to frequent. None of them seem quite right. The color of the floor is different, no honeycomb bookshelves with children’s stories that Chanyeol is sure the dogs don’t enjoy other than gnawing at the spines. There isn’t subway tile cladding on the walls anywhere. By 5 PM, Chanyeol gives up, having only gone to three cafes by foot. He spots a dakgalbi place by the corner and texts Baekhyun not to wait up and that he’s eating outside. The place is thankfully pet-friendly, and they give him a seat for Toben, who gracefully stays put while Chanyeol ties his leash to the legs.

Maybe he feels a little sorry for his dog, all their past misunderstandings aside, because he’s getting the consequence of Chanyeol’s infatuation despite being perfectly content to get one-handed belly rubs from Baekhyun while he plays PUBG.

Right when the server is about to take Chanyeol’s order, someone else rushes into the restaurant, the bells above the doors ringing as he pushes them open. The sudden sound startles Chanyeol and his finger accidentally lands on a random thing on the menu. Before he knows it, the menu is gently taken from his hands, the order repeated to him but unheard.

The newcomer sits a couple of tables across from him, quietly flipping through the menu. It takes him a couple of determined flips before he’s familiar enough with the menu to lower it from his face. He’s handsome, Chanyeol thinks, in a muted sort of way. His hair is cropped short at the sides, but the front is long enough to curl toward the center of his forehead, Clark Kent-style. The server is seated on a stool near the counter, chewing gum thoughtlessly as he watches a replay of Mnet on the flatscreen.

A few minutes later, he walks to the table with a gigantic dish. Chanyeol is too preoccupied following the movement of New Guy’s hand from his brow down to his lips to notice that it’s being placed before him.

“Ah… thanks,” he says, louder than he means to, and the server just bows again, then moves to the other table to take New Guy’s order. New Guy looks at him now, his menu flat on the table, and Chanyeol gives Toben a few scritches so he doesn’t have to look at him.

He has to finish this whole dish, which he’s pretty sure is for 3-4 people. In his more inspired moments, he would be able to finish this dish all by himself, but he kind of cares about what this stranger thinks of him and his eating habits. When he looks up again, New Guy isn’t looking at him anymore, and he looks like he’s about to say his order before Chanyeol blurts out, “Wait!”

Both the server and New Guy stare at him, the former with barely concealed irritation, and the other with a confused expression. “Do you… wanna share this with me? We can split the bill, or I can still pay for all this, I just realized I can’t finish this by myself.”

The server’s moved to actually glaring at him, maybe upset that he’s losing money from a paying customer, but New Guy mumbles something at him, and the server nods and leaves, appeased.

He walks over to Chanyeol’s table, pulling back the seat so he can plop down. “The dog yours?”

“Yeah, uh. My mom takes care of him most of the time, but he’s with me for now.” Toben lets out a little bark. New Guy just offers his finger to Toben, allows the dog to sniff it. He doesn’t get bitten, which is another point against Chanyeol and Toben’s Get Along Sweater Initiative. New Guy just scratches Toben’s chin with that finger.

“I have dogs too,” he says, when he catches Chanyeol staring. “Your dog is cute. What’s his name?”

“Chanyeol,” Chanyeol replies, then freezes. “I mean, I’m Chanyeol. That’s Toben, like Beethoven.” New Guy gives a brilliant, heart-shaped smile. He tips his head forward in mock-greeting to Toben, a faint hello falling from his lips. Chanyeol is so jealous. “You should, um. Tell me your name too.”

“I’m Kyungsoo,” he says. It’s such a common name, Chanyeol has seen it so many times in his math problems back in high school. “We should eat. I ordered some dumplings and clear clam soup, too. I hope you don’t mind or have any allergies.” Chanyeol shakes his head.

They take chopsticks and a spoon each. Kyungsoo uses his chopsticks to stack garaetteok, chicken and cheese, in that order, on his spoon. Chanyeol just scoops up three spoonfuls of the dish into a bowl, picking out the garaetteok first before everything else.

The jogaetang arrives soon after. Chanyeol quietly applauds Kyungsoo’s sense for food pairing. The clam soup cleanly washes away the lingering spice from the sauce. Kyungsoo must feel the eyes on him because he smirks a little, before downing the bowl and popping clam meat in his mouth.

Toben whines for some food, so Chanyeol fishes the inside of his bag for the treat bag. When he turns up empty, Kyungsoo is leaning into Toben’s space, cooing. “You poor thing,” he says, a dog treat miraculously appearing on his palm from his coat pocket. He holds out his palm to present the treat to Toben, who happily takes it between his teeth. Kyungsoo’s hands are so pretty.

“I always have some on me,” Kyungsoo explains. “Sometimes Huchu gets too antsy to wait for me to get treats from the pantry when I get into the door.” Funny, because. Dyo has a dog named Huchu too. “Wanna see her?”

Chanyeol nods, happy that Kyungsoo thinks he’s cool enough to know what his dog looks like. Kyungsoo slides his phone across the table, a photo of two dogs lighting up the screen. Two toy poodles, one black and the other grey, just like ground pepper. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the black dog is called—

“Meokmul,” Kyungsoo says. Chanyeol chokes on his food.

“Are you okay?!” Avoid being pathetic in front of a cute guy, Kyungsoo— _Dyo_ , failed. A glass of water is pushed into his hand, the flat of Kyungsoo’s palm hitting the space between his shoulder blades firmly. Chanyeol takes the water and drinks, tries his best not to blow spicy sauce/water combo onto the table from his nose.

“I’m fine,” Chanyeol manages. His eyes are stinging. “I’m okay, Kyungsoo, I—” Another coughing fit. “I swear I’m fine. Happens all the time.”

Kyungsoo takes a seat when he stops coughing, looking unconvinced. Chanyeol sits straight, tries to fire a convincing smile and a thumbs up at Kyungsoo. His face is probably more red blotch than skin, but it makes Kyungsoo laugh a little. Of all the things Chanyeol expected Dyo to be, the guy sitting across him is unexpected and a little perfect. Chanyeol has to get his number somehow.

They eat in silence, the food vanishing between the two of them. Kyungsoo really enjoys the food, if the number of times he’s said it’s delicious under his breath is anything to go by. He should probably try mukbangs on his channel.

Speaking of his channel, didn’t he say he was new to the area? “Is it your first time here? I haven’t seen you around these parts.”

Kyungsoo blinks at him. “Yeah, actually. Just a month and a half ago. New job.” Jackpot. Now for the killing part.

“Maybe we can exchange numbers. I’ll show you around.” Chanyeol ends the sentence with his biggest smile. When Kyungsoo doesn’t reply right away, he adds, “Puppy date? I swear I’m not an axe murderer.”

“That’s what all the cute guys say,” Kyungsoo replies, “but okay. Sure, to both.”

Chanyeol had hoped for devastatingly attractive, but after a near death experience, cute will do. He opens his phone up to the dialer and takes Kyungsoo’s from his open palm. Chanyeol hopes the way his hands shake goes unnoticed.

**Author's Note:**

> i wish i could promise when the new chapter will be out, but i can't :( i have maybe half of it written and ready to be edited, but that's all i can say
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/eggsoodeux)  
> [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/eggsoodeux)  
> [other exo fic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessoceans/works?fandom_id=550814)


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